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Re: M.i.a.

MIA was an artist I hated when she first came out, but I gradually came around on. I still don't see sheer brilliance here, but I can enjoy her tracks. Give me a few years, and I may be the last person on the "MIA is God" bandwagon.

Re: M.i.a.

Originally Posted by G-Lexington

MIA was an artist I hated when she first came out, but I gradually came around on. I still don't see sheer brilliance here, but I can enjoy her tracks. Give me a few years, and I may be the last person on the "MIA is God" bandwagon.

Lex

I was really surprised how "mainstream" she became from the one song "Paper Airplanes".

Re: M.i.a.

Hey, new M.I.A. album! Awesome! The agit-pop queenpin told Rolling Stone a little bit about her forthcoming Kala follow-up, supposedly due this summer. (This would presumably be the album that Diplo called "Gucci Mane meets Animal Collective".) And to hear Maya tell it, this thing's going to be even loonier than anyone could've guessed.

M.I.A. tells RS that she recorded much of it with Baltimore club upstart Blaqstarr producing. Blaqstarr previously collaborated with M.I.A. on the Kala track "The Turn" and on the Tom Waits sorta-cover "Way Down in the Hole". She tells Rolling Stone that Blaqstarr "simply makes music that sounds good, and I needed that."

But Blaqstarr isn't the album's only collaborator. M.I.A. also says that she recorded a song called (seriously) "I'm Down Like Your Internet Connection" with a group of Filipino Verizon workers. She says, "I was having issues with my cable and wireless, and I was on the phone [with tech support] for three hours, and I thought, 'Maybe this needs to be part of my music, could you just learn these lyrics and sing it down the phone to me?' 10 phone calls later, I have Internet that sticks and a song."

She also says that she's both singing and rapping on this one: "I just stopped singing on the last one because I put more emphasis into production, so I was more about making beats and sang less on my last album." And she gives another sample song title: "I Fight the Ones That Fight Me".

On a more general level, though, she's thoughtful and reserved when talking about the new LP: "The last album, I didn't actually sit anywhere long enough for it to really be in my life and to really think about it. Now I'm putting out my next album, and the world has changed. I came up talking shit about Bush, and it's great that it’s changed, but I don’t know how much it’s changed, and I'm exploring that ... I just want to be real, whatever that is. Even if my songs are shit, and if I have flaws and if I'm confused, if I offend people or if I don't offend people, I might try to work it out in public-- just so you know that it's OK to think that thinking's not a dirty word."

Last night, Diplo posted the following message on his Twitter: "All day finishin up these @_m_i_a tracks... Its official.. This team is from the FUTURE!! - diplo rusko switch mia blaqstarr sleighbellz FTW"

And while we already knew most of those producers were getting in on M.I.A.'s forthcoming LP, the addition of Brooklyn noise-pop act Sleigh Bells is new. And it's official, according to Sleigh Bells' manager, who told The Village Voice that Sleigh Bells songwriter "Derek [Miller] did production work on the album." The duo's publicist confirmed it as well.
M.I.A.'s album is due out this summer

Re: M.i.a.

M.I.A. rifled off three quick posts on her Twitter: "BANNED FROM LEAVING THE U.S, FAMILY BANNED FROM COMING TO U.S TO SEE ME, BABY, RECORDING LP, SIGNING THE DOPEST ACTS THATS HITTIN 2010," "I THINK IM READY," and "JUNE 2010."

Which seems to suggest the U.S. government still believes she's some sort of threat and that her much anticipated third album is coming out in June. Either that, or she just really likes the month of June and wants to tell people about it.

M.I.A. worked with producers Diplo, Rusko, Switch, Blaqstarr, and Sleigh Bells' Derek Miller on the LP. (Could the currently label-less Rising duo Sleigh Bells be one of said "DOPEST ACTS"?) Last week, Rusko Tweeted that the album is finished. And she posted a version of new song "Space Odyssey" on her Twitter last month.

Re: M.i.a.

M.I.A. will be playing "HARD Fest" shows in L.A. and NYC this July - her first scheduled US shows for 2010. The L.A. date is July 17th at the Los Angeles State Historic Park. NYC's is July 24th.

Tickets for L.A. go on sale Friday, March 26th. NYC ticket info TBA.

M.I.A. has a new record due this year (possibly in June). Her Neet Recordings will be putting out Treats, the debut record from Sleigh Bells (who play SXSW and have plenty of other shows coming up), in conjunction with (as previously mentioned) Mom + Pop Records on May 11th. Neet has also signed Blaqstarr.

M.I.A's other shows include Řya Festival in Oslo on August 10th-14th, and Underage Festival in London on August 1st.

Re: M.i.a.

M.I.A. Announces Festival Gigs

irst off, she'll play HARD Fest shows in both New York and L.A. The L.A. show will happen July 17 at L.A. Historic State Park, and the NYC show goes down July 24 at South Island Field on Governors Island. She'll also top the bill at London's Underage Festival, which comes to Victoria Park on August 1, and she'll join Pavement, Big Boi, the Stooges, the xx, Girls, LCD Soundsystem, and more at the Řya Festival, which happens August 10-14 in Oslo, Norway. And with festival season just heating up, hopefully she'll show up at a few more, too.

Re: M.i.a.

If you want to know the release date for M.I.A.’s upcoming album, it is written in the stars.

During Jay-Z’s set at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival on Friday (April 16), a blimp carrying a digital billboard flew over the crowd advertising the “Paper Planes” rapper’s appearances at the HARD Summer Music Festival in Los Angeles and New York, as well as the drop date for her third LP.

“New Album 6.29.10” flashed across the scrolling ticker as it soared above concertgoers. The follow-up to 2007’s Kala will feature production from Rusko and Blaqstarr, and tentatively arrive on the same date as her protégée Rye Rye’s debut effort Go! Pop! Bang!

Next week, M.I.A. will premiere a viral video for “Born Free,” a song she first debuted at San Francisco’s Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival last August.

Re: M.i.a.

MIA: 'Justin Bieber's video is more offensive than 'Born Free

MIA has joked that she thinks that Justin Bieber's promo videos are "more offensive" than her controversial video for her song 'Born Free'.

The singer, speaking in the new issue of NME, out today (May 12), said she was baffled as to why people were interested in understanding the meaning of the clip, refusing to reveal her motivations behind it.

"I find the new Justin Bieber video more violent and more of an assault to my eyes and senses than what I've made," she joked.

Directed by Romain Gavras, the 'Born Free' video features nudity, graphic violence and a plot where ginger adolescents are rounded up into an armour-protected van, driven to the country and either shot or made to run through a minefield. Watch it by clicking below.

MIA added: "It baffles me that everyone seems to be obsessed with deciphering the meaning to it. It baffles me in the same way as the Brick Lane riot for American Apparel leggings baffled me. We don't know what the process is for this one is yet. I haven't thought about it yet and I don't want to have to."

Get this week's issue of NME, on UK newsstands nationwide from tomorrow (May 12), for a exclusive cover story interview with MIA.

Re: M.i.a.

M.I.A.: The Billboard Cover Story

During "Space," the dreamy future-shock ballad that closes her upcoming third album, M.I.A. repeatedly coos, "My lines are down/You can't call me," over a gently percolating beat that sounds like a Sega Genesis practicing its pillow talk. It's just one of the many observations on our data-drenched Infotainment Age that crop up throughout "/\/\ /\ Y /\," a stunning, more-or-less self-titled effort from the 34-year-old Sri Lankan native born Maya Arulpragasam. Yet in a telephone interview with Billboard last week, the lyric is taking on another, more literal meaning, as M.I.A. travels on a Eurostar train from Brussels to London during a hectic round of European promotion. Namely, her cell phone keeps dropping our call whenever her train enters a tunnel.

Re: M.i.a.

Either people at the M.I.A. camp are very eager, or someone screwed up.
Either way, the new M.I.A. record is now up for stream in full. But wait! That's not all.
Even though the album isn't supposed to drop until July 13, it is now available on iTunes.

/ \ / \ / \ Y / \ is the new highly anticipated album which comes to us courtesy of N.E.E.T./Interscope.

Re: M.i.a.

M.I.A. Drops NYE Mixtape, 'Vicki Leekx'

M.I.A. has delivered on her promise to drop a mixtape on New Year's Eve, offering up 'ViCKi LEEKX," a unrelenting assault of global beats, on a website of the same name. The 36-minute set, which features production by Diplo, Rusko, Switch and Blaqstarr, samples Nicki Minaj's "straight from Sri Lanka" line on Kanye West's "Monster" and opens with a quote from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange: "We choose the right format. We leak the information to the public, and we defend ourselves against inevitable legal and political attacks."

Re: M.i.a.

M.I.A. Releases Remix EP

The EP is available now digitally from Interscope and features remixes from, among others, Buraka Som Sistema and Finnish producer Huoratron. You can grab the latter's take on URB. Check out the tracklist below.

Re: M.i.a.

M.I.A. Working with Chris Brown, the Cataracs on New Music

M.I.A. has gathered a handful of hitmakers -- including Chris Brown, the Cataracs, Polow da Don and Swizz Beatz -- to assist in recording her latest material after her last album failed to deliver a "Paper Planes"-sized hit single.

Niles "Cyrano" Hollowell-Dhar, one-half of California duo the Cataracs (Far*East Movement's "Like a G6," Dev's "Bass Down Low"), tells Billboard.com that he and production partner David "Campa" Benjamin Singer-Vine have recently spent time in a Los Angeles studio with the singer. While Hollowell-Dhar was not sure if the material would be included on M.I.A.'s fourth proper album, the producer thinks that the singer is "working on a mixtape, and she wants it to be like an album."

"I think she's really going f**king H.A.M. on this. She's not pulling any punches," says Hollowell-Dhar, who has heard rough mixes of other material on the forthcoming release.

The producer also confirms that Swizz Beatz and Polow da Don have worked M.I.A. in the past week. Polow da Don (Usher's "Love in This Club," Rich Boy's "Throw Some D's") also revealed that Chris Brown had joined M.I.A. and himself in the studio in a Twitter post last Friday (Apr. 15). "IN THE LAB WIT THE GREAT @chrisbrown AND THE INCREDIBLE @_M_I_A_ THANK YOU DEAR LORD!" the producer wrote.

"/\/\ /\ Y /\," M.I.A.'s third album released last July, was considered a critical and commercial misstep, having sold just 85,000 copies upon release, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Since then, the singer played last year's Virgin Mobile Freefest and HARD Fest, as well as released a new mixtape, "Vicki Leekx," on New Year's Eve.

Re: M.i.a.

there's nothing that has come from her that I don't like. her mixtape was brilliant. and i still really enjoyed Maya even though critics didn't view it as positively. her politics and experiences in her songs are just succinctly sung and brilliantly told.

edit to add: and it doesn't matter if Maya wasn't as much of a success. she describes in XXXO that she won't conform her music or looks to become popular: "You want me be somebody // Who I'm really not"
M.I.A. is greatness.

Last edited by eryk-v; April 24th, 2011 at 11:26 AM.
Reason: adding a comment

Re: M.i.a.

M.I.A. and Swizz Beatz Recording Music for Each Other's Albums

.I.A. and Swizz Beatz have created magic with a range of talented artists, separately, which is why we were excited - and anxious - to hear that the two were collaborating. A rep from Swizz Beatz's camp has confirmed with Billboard's The Juice that Beatz and M.I.A. are recording music for each other's upcoming albums, M.I.A.'s yet to be titled album and Beatz's "Haute Living."

Last week, Niles "Cyrano" Hollowell-Dhar, one-half of California duo the Cataracs, confirmed collaborating with M.I.A. and revealed that she's also been in the studio with Swizz Beatz and Polow da Don.

On April 29, a video surfaced of Swizz Beatz and M.I.A. in the lab., from April 20. In the clip, Beatz shows his tattoos while M.I.A. takes a hit in honor of 4/20.

Re: M.i.a.

The original video for M.I.A.'s "XXXO", from her 2010 LP /\/\/\Y/\, basically looked like the kind of screensaver you had on your computer around the time that you used the thing for Minesweeper more than for the Internet. Things could've been a lot different, though.

Recently, Maya Tweeted a link to a behind-the-scenes look at a video shoot, writing ">>> the making of excess sex oh , XXXO THAT NEVER GOT TO B , BUT STILL WAS FUN AND BEAUTIFUL." In other words, there was once an ultra-colorful, body-paint-tastic video in the works for "XXXO", but for some reason or another, it never got finished. Shame, too, since it looks like it would've been pretty cool to watch-- check out that big jungle cat, for instance. Crazy stuff. Watch it below.

Re: M.i.a.

SebastiAn is set to release the second single from his debut album "C.T.F.O." which features M.I.A. in Europe on August 21st. The single features 2 exclusive remixes from '80s pioneers DMX Krew as well as the chart topping Dubstep/Dance duo, Nero.

Re: M.i.a.

M.I.A. Confirms Collaboration with Madonna and Nicki Minaj

After releasing third album "/\/\ /\ Y /\" to mixed reviews last year, M.I.A. has been missing in action for most of 2011. However, the electro-dance artist confirmed a juicy collaboration for 2012 over the weekend by announcing that she was joining Madonna and Nicki Minaj in New York, presumably to contribute on Madge's in-the-works new album.

"Summond to NYC by bitchesses &gt; MADONNA and @NICKIMINAJ," M.I.A. posted on Twitter on Saturday (Nov. 26). "cofffffiiiiiiieeeeeeeeee it iz a good day to get me tho trustttt bitches."

Earlier this month, the first taste of Madonna's follow-up to 2008's "Hard Candy," a demo of an uptempo single called "Give Me All Your Love," leaked in full online. Madonna responded to the leak by telling manager Guy Oseary, "My true fans wouldn't do this."

"The plan was for new music to come out in the new year, and yet someone leaked a demo version of a song yesterday. I'm very happy with the positive reaction to the demo, but we are very upset with whoever leaked the song!!!" Oseary posted on Twitter on Nov. 9. At that time, Oseary said that Madonna's new album would be completed "in the next month or so," and while rumors persist that the pop star will play the Super Bowl halftime show in February, the performance has yet to be confirmed.

For Minaj, a collaboration with Madonna and M.I.A. would cap off a year in which she added guest vocals to songs by David Guetta, Drake and Birdman, among others. Meanwhile, production duo the Cataracs (Far*East Movement's "Like a G6") confirmed to Billboard.com in April that they had been working with M.I.A. on new material, which they thought would be for "a mixtape, and she wants it to be like an album."

Chris Brown, Swizz Beatz and Polow da Don also joined the "Paper Planes" singer in the studio last spring, a few months after she released a new mixtape, "Vicki Leekx," on New Year's Eve. In July, M.I.A. released "27," a tribute song for the recently deceased Amy Winehouse.